#FuckParade - no. Just no.

I see lots of people saying either "it's fine to destroy Cereal Killers" or "why pick on Cereal Killers when there's banks or Subway or Starbucks?"
As to the former argument, I don't see that someone who has risked their finances on something as dodgy as a cereal café needs any violent help in going bankrupt. If you don't like what they're selling, don't buy it. I think my local Portuguese caff sells shit coffee, so I don't buy it. That's the civilised way of doing it. I don't spray "useless barista" on his fucking windows and threaten the sad twats who seem to like his shit coffee.
But the latter argument is far more prevalent, and not just among left-wing thugs looking for ricekrispallnacht. People seem to think that it's OK to vandalise a chain or a bank, because some mythical tax law hasn't been complied with. If you've actually been through Starbucks tax records and you're convinced they've broken the law, report them to HMRC. That's what you're supposed to do. But even if Starbucks HAS broken tax law, a fucking barista has NOTHING to do with it. They're scraping by on a shitty wage and they're not fat cat decision makers. They work hard, deal with twats all day long and don't need threats of violence just because they've taken a job.
If you can't make your argument without threatening innocent people going about their lawful lives, you don't have an argument.
So fuck off and take your cunting parade with you.
Update: credit where it's due

I can only apologise to John Cougar Mellencamp

Little ditty about Jez and Diane 2 London kids in Labour's heartland Jez's gonna be a politics star Diane debutante backseat of Jez's car Suckin' on a chili dog outside the tastee freeze Diane's sittin' on Jacky's lap, he's got his hands between her knees Jez he say, "Hey Diane lets run off behind a shady tree Dribble off those Bobby brooks, let me do what I please" And say a "Oh yeah life goes on Long after the thrill of livin' is gone" Say a, "Oh yeah life goes on Long after the thrill of livin' is gone, they walk on" Jez he sits back reflects his thoughts for the moment Scratches his head and does his best James Dean Well you know Diane, we gotta run of the city Diane says "Baby, you ain't missing nothing Jez he say a "Oh yeah life goes on Long after the thrill of livin' is gone Oh yeah they say life goes on Long after the thrill of livin' is gone" Gonna let it roll 'n' rock Let it roll Let the party vote come on down And save my role Hold on to 16 as long as you can Changes come around real soon Make us women and men Oh yeah life goes on Long after the thrill of livin' is gone Oh yeah they say life goes on Long after the thrill of livin' is gone A little ditty about Jez and Diane Two Labour kids doin' the best that they can

Suddenly, Labour is a meritocracy!

After years and years of enforcing quotas for women and 'people of colour' (and demanding them elsewhere!) the newly socialist Labour Party has provided a shadow cabinet where all the top jobs are white, middle-aged men. Suddenly ardent socialists, who have been calling out "unrepresentative" Tories and others are all in favour of "choosing people who are best qualified" to do the job. Now, I don't mind that the best qualified people get jobs (although it's quite debatable that any MP has any qualification to do any job they get) but then I'm not the one berating others for not meeting some arbitrary made up quota that I think is important. As ever, it's the hypocrisy that offends.

The Downfall of Camila BruceWayneJelly

I'm amazed. So someone who was fêted by a series of Prime Ministers and unaccountable bureaucrats, assisted by over-entitled Beeb management, troughing on taxpayer money, went from being a helpful charity doing important work to an overstaffed, completely unaccountable quango with overly lavish offices dishing out benefits on the whim of the founder?

What did you think was going to happen?

And what do you think is happening at all those other "charities" that exist solely because our tax money is shovelled at them?

Demonisation

It is, of course, that "the left" accuses "the right" of demonising the poor, immigrants, blacks, Asians and the infirm (or whatever the socially acceptable term for these people is, this week).

This is an actual conversation on twitter:

Literally a post made by the social media campaign for a political party representing an entire state. Gross. LINK
-- Tom Nix

@TheTomNix @SpaghettiJesus and?
-- Me

OK, so here we go. I read that link and all I got was "if you hand out stuff, the recipients become dependent on the handouts". I don't think there's any particular controversy in that argument. But if you're looking to be offended, the obvious thing to do is to drag something irrelevant into the point.

@obotheclown @TheTomNix they compared poor people to animals
-- @SpaghettiJesus

@SpaghettiJesus @TheTomNix we’re all animals, last time I looked
-- Me

@obotheclown @TheTomNix yeah but people running for political office tend not to want to insult their voting base on principle.
-- @SpaghettiJesus

I'm afraid that if you go around looking for things to be offended by, it's very difficult not to offend you. I'm frankly astounded by the lengths to which someone will go to be offended. And anyone looking for votes is trying very hard not to offend potential voters.

But watch this...

@obotheclown @TheTomNix of course they're inbred and basically brain dead so object permanence is hard for them.
-- @SpaghettiJesus

Having just accused someone of making a sweeping generalisation that could be considered offensive, the obvious thing to do is to make a sweeping generalisation that could be considered offensive. I mean, right now I'm pretty poor and I didn't take offence at the handouts thing. But if I was an Oklahoman, I'd probably be mildly annoyed at being described as inbred and brain dead because of an accident of birth. You can't really choose where your born, any more than you can choose your skin colour. So where is "the left's" moral high ground now?

Of course, that's just one conversation, but it's one I see quite often:

Left: Tories hate the poor / blacks / immigrants / women

Right: No they don't

Left: Of course they do, look at the Infographic from Labour Eoin / video of Iain Duncan Smith which I'll pretend is him cheering murdering the poor / innocuous comment from David Cameron that I'm going to twist and take out of context.

Etc.

I think that "the left" hate "the right" far more virulently than "the right" hates anyone. "The right" just has a different set of things that they believe is important to make the poor better off than "the left". That doesn't mean they want them dead or ground under heel, it just means that their compassion and reasoning has led them to a different conclusion. This doesn't mean their motives or objectives are evil.

If "the left" genuinely wants to engage and change the way "the right" thinks or behaves, then not blaming them for every evil in the world and ascribing the worst of human nature to their every word, thought and deed is possibly a good place to start.

I'm not holding my breath.

A Greek Tragedy

So, Alex has put up a spirited defence of his nation:

"They have decided to strangle us, whether we say yes or no", said a Greek woman to me yesterday.

"The only choice we have is to make it quick or slow. I will vote "oxi" (no). We are economically dead anyway. I might as well have my conscience clear and my pride intact." 

I can't really argue with the opening lines of his article, but it really is all bloody downhill from there:

At times of financial strain, a country's currency issuer, its central bank, should act as lender of last resort and prime technocratic negotiator. In Greece's case, the European Central Bank, sits on the same side as the creditors; acts as their enforcer.

Well, yes, this is one of the obvious consequences of being a small player in a monetary union. It's one of the many reasons sane people don't want to be part of the Euro.

EU Institutions are now openly admitting that their aim is regime change. A coup d'état in anything by name, using banks instead of tanks and a corrupt media as the occupiers' broadcaster. The rest of Europe stands back and watches. Those leaders who promised the Syriza government support before the election, have ducked for cover. I understand it. They sympathise, but they don't want to be next. They are honourable cowards. They look at the punishment beating being meted out and their instinct is to protect their own. 

I'm sorry, is this a surprise? The EU is all about homogenising Europe to a point where it becomes a trivial exercise to implement a superstate. I don't want to sound like a deranged 'KIPper here, but this is just an inevitable consequence of any bureaucratic organisation, whether it's the Fed, the EU, the civil service, a bank ... bureaucracies always want to grow their fiefdom, their reach and their power. So why wouldn't the EU want a more compliant and obedient partner running Greece? It's not exactly a shock to anyone except the Greeks, apparently. It must be wonderful to have retained childlike naïveté, despite being one of the oldest civilisations in the Western world.

Corruption and tax evasion had been rife for decades. Accounts were falsified in order to facilitate entry into the Euro. Unforgivable economic crimes were committed. These weren't committed by most ordinary people of course - the very people now asked to take on the burden of the follies of our rich oligarchs. Corrupt politicians who passed the country back and forth like a joint were quick to secure their money in Swiss bank accounts. But we must share in a collective responsibility for them. We all knew what was going on and we either became part of it or didn't rebel soon enough or loudly enough.

And having said that, are you now exculpated? You seem to be saying that because you've had a really tough five years, that's undone all the decades of corruption? I don't think so, sunshine.

Those factors are what put us on the front line when the global financial crisis began to unfold within the Eurozone. All those systemic flaws are what made Greece the weak link when the earthquake hit. But we didn't cause the earthquake. We just lived in creaking houses that went down easily. 

Well, yes. And this is what thousands of people (including deranged 'KIPpers) warned would happen. But the world's oldest democracy, and presumably the wisest, still voted in favour of doing so. Possibly because of the decades of normalised, socially acceptable corruption. Who knows?

Greece should have been allowed to default in 2010. Default is a normal part of debt, not some monstrously catastrophic event. Germany has defaulted on its debts four times in the last century. Italy six. Default is reflected in interest differentials. An element of interest on a loan is of course "rent" for using someone else's money, but the reason Germany's government 10y bonds trade at below 1% and Venezuela's at over 24% is not whim. It reflects risk. Removing that risk is the real moral hazard.

But Alex, you can't default if you're part of the Eurozone. And fuck me, no person can reasonably say that this was not immediately apparent when the idea of the Eurozone was floated. Also, is once every 25 years really "normal"?

"Stop whining and pay what you owe." "Nobody forced you to take the loans in the first place." "Why should taxpayers elsewhere pay for your extravagance?" There was some truth to all of those things back in 2010. There is no truth to them now. We were forced to take the loans. That is precisely what happened. We were told "do this for all of us", to avoid contagion. Less than 10% of the "Greek" bailout has gone to Greece. The rest has gone to strengthen irresponsible financial institutions, mainly French and German, which were heavily exposed. 

Call a waaaambulance, please. When a libertarian points out that the main beneficiaries of government intervention and regulation are the incumbent corporate interests, Alex is the first to scoff. Social democrats are very keen on the state running as much as possible, and looking at a very social democratic EU, I can't see why Alex is objecting to social democrats behaving like social democrats always behave, rather than how he thinks they do or should do.

I'm not surprised that 90% of the bailout went to irresponsible banks. This is what the state does, support powerful vested interests at the expense of the taxpayer. How many more times do you need to be slapped in the face with it before you realise that it's the problem, not the fucking solution?

There was no provision within the Eurozone for what happens if market shock creates sudden and dramatic divergence between countries' economic cycles. (Emphasis is mine.) We were no longer individually in charge of basic economic levers like quantitative easing or devaluing our currency - a standard response in those circumstances. Our fates were entangled. We could either devalue the whole of the currency which would help countries severely affected by the crisis or not devalue which would help countries like Germany which were in a more robust position. We were told: "do this and we will look after you". Whatever it takes, said Mario Draghi, to convince Greece to take yet another loan.

Duh. Just remind me who voted Greece into the Eurozone? Did no Greek notice this up front or think it worth mentioning? And did you really think the Germans were going to devalue the Euro for GREECE? For fuck's sake, man!

There are many, many things wrong with the EU: lack of accountability, financial and electoral; overreach; enforced homogeneity and more, but ultimately it suffers most from the disease of control: there is a lot of power for powerful countries to use on less powerful countries. Greece may be the canary in the coalmine for people who want to see where it's going, but I suspect most Federasts are secretly on board with the idea of a European superstate taking it's "rightful" place on the world stage.

This is, however, ultimately a case where both sides need to lose: the Greeks cannot undo decades of dodgy business / tax / ethical culture in a couple of years of austerity and they definitely own the pain of their decision to join the Eurozone with all the consequences, but equally the EU's desire for regime change to suit their corporatist aims is hugely repugnant.

I just wonder whether pro-EU people will defend the EU's behaviour or whether they will admit the mask has slipped a little too much now?

The BAME of our lives

I see that dreadful race hustler (when it's expedient) Yvette Cooper is playing "Diversity" again:

Prior to the last election there was also criticism from within the party that there was a “shameful” lack of BAME candidates in key seats. Labour currently has 23 minority ethnic MPs.

Really? Why does this matter?

With over a million ethnic minority voters choosing the Tories at the last election Labour cannot be complacent. If Labour is not representative of our voters how can we hope to keep their support?

I'm sorry, what? Are you now saying that minorities are so fucking stupid, they'll vote for the racial mix of a party, rather than their policies? If that's how it works, how do you explain George Galloway's previous electoral success?


A million ethnic minority voters voted Tory because a) Ed Miliband was a complete retard and b) Labour's policies were shit. They didn't vote Tory because the Tory party is more representative of their community.

What she's basically saying is "vote for us, and we'll make sure 'your kind of people' get their snouts into the trough, whether they're useless or not".

Well done, Yvette, you patronising, pork-barrel, Westminster-bubble fucktard.

#EndAusterityNow

I see there's some ghastly gathering of unwashed fucknuggets making Westminster smell even worse than usual today. Owen Jones, Russell Brand, Charlotte Church and various other shroud waving shitgoblins and taking time out from their celebrity lifestyles to boost their street cred with the lower ranks.

Apparently, because the actual overall majority of voters didn't vote for the Tories, so the Tories don't have a mandate for their agenda.

76% didn't vote for this Govt - Osborne has no mandate for austerity.  He wants to shrink state not cut deficit #EndAusterityNow #JuneDemo - Caroline Mucus

That's lovely, Cazza, but as was immediately pointed out to her, 71% of the people in Brighton Pavilion didn't vote for her, so is she going to resign out of principle?

Furthermore, as I recall (and I may be wrong, but it's definitely that order of magnitude) something like 61% didn't vote for Blair in his "landslide" and I don't remember this concern for the unrepresented from unwashed lefties back then.

There have been dozens of variations of democracy implemented all over the world, and none of them ever meets with universal approval. But the British state has gradually been centralising control powers over decades, meaning that the blatant disparity between what people want and what they get is becoming more and more overt.

The same thing happened with the Scottish Independence referendum - despite a very clear win, there was a sufficiently large minority who lost out that feel that they haven't been heard.

Yet when I point out that this is always the case in a democracy, that there is always a large chunk of the populace who get fucked over, whatever the result, I always get told that I should join the system and change it from within. I'm told that my sniping from the sidelines does nothing useful.

So today my message to the earnest, the thuggish and the hypocritical who want someone else to pay for everything is this: go become a politician, go change the system from the inside. Your protest marches are no more effective than my blog posts.

Or alternatively, consider the possibility that I may be right: democracy is merely a fig leaf that allows evil Tories to fuck over the poor or kind-hearted Labour to fuck over the poor in a different way.

Ireland takes it up the shitter

It's not final yet, but it looks like the bogtrotters have decided to let pooves, dykes and other assorted perverts and deviants get married.

This is great news, it's entirely unclear to me why only breeders should be allowed the misery and stress of married life. And it's also good that it looks like it will be a clear, unambiguous and wide-spread decision.

However, I do have a couple of reservations:

• what happens if there is a different definition of marriage for straights and queers, like there is in the UK? As far as I'm concerned, if there's not actual equality, then this isn't really any different from civil partnerships.
• why are there different definitions of marriage for different groups of people? Well, you might argue that the definition of sex between straights, gays and dykes is potentially all different, so what constitutes adultery is different. But then I might, as a straight, commit an act that is not adultery in a gay marriage but is adultery in a straight marriage. How is that equality?
• why is the state even involved in defining and restricting what is essentially a private contract between two people? The state doesn't get involved in my business transactions (other than to extort protection money off me!), why the hell should it have anything to do with my love life? People used to let the church run the whole farce, that was no better, but the state's involvement is terrible, as it gives political parties the ability to indulge in social engineering to suit their own agenda

Anyway, here's to the impending misery of bulldykes and shirt lifters in the Emerald Isle.

Cheers!

Isn't democracy wonderful?

So, there we have it, a clear result in favour of being fucked over by Oxbridge PPEs who live 500 miles away. Bargain.

As I said, Salmond didn't want to win, he wanted to panic Westminster into giving him more powers with less accountability. Even though he didn't win, he got what he actually wanted. A very canny and astute politician, to be fair, but does making Salmond happy improve Scotland's situation?

I don't know if I'm just being unduly cynical here, but were the No guys really so unsure of their case that they really believed that handing over free bags of sweeties to Salmond would do the trick? Fuck that. If there was ever proof that the current parliament was populated by vacuous makeweight retards*, this was surely it? You had no plan, nothing more powerful than to bring out a discredited, cowardly ex-Prime Mentalist to make offers that NO FUCKING CUNT HAD VOTED ON?

That's a ringing endorsement of democracy right there.

A further ringing endorsement is that despite it being massively engaged, with a broader plebiscite than usual and huge turnout, the result ultimately disenfranchises nearly half of the Scottish population.

Let's be generous for a moment: let's imagine that all the people voting yes had done detailed research, had genuine aspirations to independence and had a clear, optimistic vision of their future - those people will now never have the chance to exercise that vision. 45% (and possibly more) of the Scottish people will now have to live out their lives with their greatest aspiration as a people, crushed.

Now let's be realistic: one-third of the Yes voters would have voted whatever the SNP suggested, much like one-third of the UK's population would vote for Labour, even if their MP was a massive turd wearing a red rosette. Or John Prescott. One-third of them would have voted as a protest against the Tories, because Thatcher. And the rest would have genuinely aspired to independent Scotland. What would have happened if they'd won?

Which of those scenarios makes a better case for democracy? The case that a large portion (in the UK overall it's generally TWO-THIRDS of us) now live in a situation they didn't want; or the case that unreasoned, unthinking stupidity can make a decision that everyone else has to live with?

*Apologies to retards everywhere.